Ivor Crewe, the former Essex Vice-​Chancellor, and a political scientist, used to compare contemporary human rights activists to 19th century Christian missionaries, spreading the gospel to less enlightened peoples. There is more than a grain of truth to this ironical jibe, aimed at his colleagues in the Human Rights Centre. Late last year I was invited to make…

Marx and Engels had practically nothing to say about law, much less international law. They had strong principled positions on self-​determination, for example, for Ireland and Poland as oppressed nations; were in favour of the North in the American Civil War; and against British colonialism in India and French colonialism in Algeria. Lenin developed Marx’s and Engels’s…

The spectre of academic plagiarism by high-​ranking officials is affecting much of Europe. Germany especially has been in the news: on 9 February 2013, the German Education Minister, Annette Schavan, resigned her position after the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf voted the previous week to remove her doctorate following a review. The University decided to look into…

Introduction On 7 February 2014, the Sochi Winter Olympics will commence. It is estimated that these games will cost at least US$51 billion — the most expensive in history — costing Russia more than the $40 billion that China spent on the 2008 Summer Olympics. The UK spent some US$15 billion on the Summer Olympics in 2012. Sochi was selected…

David Renton’s thoughtful and trenchant article in SL64 [Ed: republished 18 Nov 2013 on CLT] has done us all a great service, opening up questions of crucial importance to the Haldane Society. That is because we are socialists, committed to solidarity in resistance to the depredations of capital, and to fighting for its abolition. We are not simply…

The European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH), with members in 18 European countries, is absolutely opposed to the proposed use of illegal force by Western powers against the Syrian regime. The US government is leading a call for military action against Syria which will of necessity kill civilians, with the ostensible purpose of showing…

One would think that it’s the Battle of Britain all over again. On 21 November 2012 the Daily Mail carried the headline “Defiant Chris Grayling says Britain can ignore Strasbourg fines if we ban prisoners from having the vote”. Cameron said that the idea of enfranchisement of any prisoners made him feel “physically ill”. Nonetheless,…

This article started life as a response to the call for papers for the international Workshop ‘Towards a Radical International Law’, held at the London School of Economics in April 2011. The call for papers started with a bold declaration: International law is a prominent site for the investiture of hope in the face of global insecurities. Yet, as…

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